On Tue, 26 Mar 2002 08:26:32 +0900, Tom Bridgeland
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>One or six years of increase, it doesn't make much difference to
>population totals. Those oldsters don't have many kids.

They may not have many kids, but the fact that the over 65s are with us for
longer than they used to be does make a significant contribution to
population growth. In England and Wales, for example, there were around 1.5
million people aged over 65 in 1901. In 1995 the figure was 8.2 million,
i.e. more than 5 times as many. The population over the period rose from
32.5 million to 51.8 million, so these old people accounted for around 1/3
of the total growth.

Cheers,

Jo